MUSHclient complex alias script

Updated 15th June 1997.

Introduction

This example script assumes you have read the companion article: Scripting a simple alias

The main drawback with the simple example is that you have to amend the script every time you want to add a new location to teleport to.

This example shows how to store teleport locations as a MUSHclient "variable", so that you can add new locations "on-the-fly". As the variables are stored in the world file they are saved when you save the world, and available next time you use that world.

Typing in the script subroutine

Use Notepad (or some other text editor) to edit the script file (the file whose name appears on the "scripts" configuration page) and add the following subroutine (you can copy from this web page and paste into the file). Both subroutines below are supplied in the file "exampscript.vbs" which accompanies MUSHclient.

sub OnTeleport (thename, theoutput, thewildcards) dim sDestination dim sRoomList dim sHelp dim iSubscript dim iRoom sDestination = Trim (thewildcards(1)) ' if nothing entered echo possible destinations if sDestination = "" then world.note "-------- TELEPORT destinations ----------" ' find list of all variables sRoomList = world.GetVariableList if not IsEmpty (sRoomList) then ' loop through each variable, and add to help if it starts with "teleport_" for iSubscript = lbound (sRoomList) to ubound (sRoomList) if Left (sRoomList (iSubscript), 9) = "teleport_" then if sHelp <> "" then sHelp = sHelp & ", " end if sHelp = sHelp & Mid (sRoomList (iSubscript), 10) end if ' variable starts with "teleport_" next ' loop through sRoomList end if ' if no destinations found, tell them if sHelp = "" then sHelp = "<no rooms in teleport list>" end if ' no destinations found in list world.note sHelp exit sub end if ' no destination supplied ' get contents of the destination variable iRoom = world.GetVariable ("teleport_" & lCase (sDestination)) ' if not found, or invalid name, that isn't in the list if IsEmpty (iRoom) or IsNull (iRoom) then world.note "******** Destination " & sDestination & " unknown *********" exit sub end if world.note "------> Teleporting to " & sDestination world.send "@teleport #" & cstr (iRoom) end sub

Interestingly, although this version is much more flexible, it is only about 10 lines longer than the simple version. What is happening is:

The third parameter passed into the script subroutine (called "thewildcards" here, but you could call it anything) is the array of wildcards to the alias, in other words "whatever the user typed after the word TELEPORT".
This first wildcard ("thewildcards (1)") is "trimmed" by using the "Trim" function. This removes leading and trailing spaces, and moved into the variable "sDestination" in the process.
If the destination is blank (ie. the user typed nothing in) then the program echoes the possible teleport locations, and exits the subroutine. It does this by:
- Getting the contents of all variables by calling "world.getvariablelist"
- Looping through each variable, and seeing if it starts with "teleport_"
- If so, it is added to the variable "sHelp", with a comma before each room name except the first
- If none were found, an explanatory message is moved in
- The contents of "sHelp" are displayed
- The subroutine exits
Otherwise, using "world.getvariable" the contents of the appropriate variable is fetched
If there is no match, a warning message is displayed (using world.note) and the subroutine exits.
If there is a match, the subroutine displays an informative message, and then sends the appropriate teleport command to the world.

Linking the alias to the script

The only thing that remains is to add an alias called "teleport" (you could make it "tel" if you want to save some typing), and tell it to call the script subroutine "OnTeleport" (ie. the one you just created) if someone types "teleport".

The resulting alias will look like this:

Example of alias - 5K

The "alias" field is what is matched on to trigger the alias. You can make it "tel" if you like, or "TEL", remembering that aliases are case-sensitive.
It is important to type the alias exactly as:
```
^teleport(.*)$
```
so MUSHclient knows to send the rest of what you type after the word "teleport" to the script subroutine.
Leave the "send" area empty - you want the script to send things to the world, not the alias directly.
Aliases that call scripts must have a label, it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it is unique.
In the "script" box type the name of the subroutine that was keyed into the VBscript file.
You can see from the example above that MUSHclient maintains a count of how many times a script was called. You can see that I tested the above script 8 times in the course of writing this article.

Making another alias to add rooms to the list

The next trick is to add rooms to our list of rooms that we can teleport to. To do this, I have defined another VBscript subroutine "OnAddTeleport" which is called from an alias "add_teleport". This subroutine expects you to type in a room name followed by its number, like this:

add_teleport RocketShip 3321

The subroutine uses two wildcards to allow you to type in two words separated by a space. It does a couple of checks (eg. that the second word is a number) and then calls "world.setvariable" to add it to the variables list. The subroutine looks like this:

sub OnAddTeleport (thename, theoutput, thewildcards) dim sDestination dim iRoom dim iStatus dim sCurrentLocation ' wildcard one is the destination sDestination = Trim (thewildcards (1)) ' if nothing entered tell them command syntax if sDestination = "" then world.note "Syntax: add_teleport name dbref" world.note " eg. add_teleport LandingBay 4421" exit sub end if ' wildcard 2 is the room to go to iRoom= Trim (thewildcards (2)) if not IsNumeric (iRoom) then world.note "Room to teleport to must be a number, you entered: " & iRoom exit sub end if ' add room and destination location to variable list iStatus = world.SetVariable ("teleport_" & sDestination, iRoom) if iStatus <> 0 then world.note "Room name must be alphabetic, you entered: " & sDestination exit sub end if world.note "Teleport location " & sDestination & "(#" _ & iRoom & ") added to teleport list" end sub

Add the second alias

You will now need to add an alias which matches on "add_teleport" with a script subroutine of "OnAddTeleport", using a very similar method to the one for adding the "teleport" alias.

In this case, however, you need to match on:


add_teleport * *

The first wildcard is the room name, the second wildcard is the room number.

Test it out!

Having typed in the script, and set up both aliases, you are ready to try them!

First type in:

add_teleport bazaar 34

And then type in: teleport bazaar Here is what it looked like for me...

Alias example - 5K

If you get syntax errors, just edit the script file and correct them. If you are using Window NT, MUSHclient will automatically detect that you have changed the script file and offer to reprocess it. If you are using Windows 95, just use the "reload script file" function (Shift+Ctrl+R).

Once you have added a couple of teleport destinations you can look at them in the variables configuration screen. You can also use that screen to change or delete destinations. Here is an example:

Variables example - 4K

Comments to Gammon Software support

Page updated on Tuesday, 6 December 2005